The Post After this is Sentimental and Nice. Really.

Now that “The Holidays” are over I can finally say it. Fuck Baby Jesus. My womb has felt gut-wrenchingly empty for about 34 weeks or so. I’ve been reading about other women who got pregnant over the summer at almost the same time as me on a chat room-type website that I used when I was pregnant with Ava. Why do I torture myself by doing that? It’s the only way I know it was real.

This morning I tried to log back in and it wouldn’t let me. Then I re signed up just so I could say hi to some of the women who are still trying to conceive after all this time or the ones that are about the same gestation as I would have been. Even still, the stupid website must have been down or just knew letting me in was a bad idea. Can’t post or blog on my profile without logging in.

I got rid of the positive pregnancy tests almost the moment the blood stopped flowing. I woke up early on the day of my daughter’s 3rd birthday miscarrying. Now, the due date looms just about a month away. It was a totally unplanned pregnancy. I had gotten Mirena just a few months before (99.9% protection for up to 5 years!). Right. The damn thing fell out. I went back to the doctor right before we left Oregon and swore something had to be wrong with it but he blew me off. Unfortunately, there’s nothing like getting pregnant that makes a woman wish she were having another baby.

Last time I lost a pregnancy, it was early on and we conceieved Ava 3-4 months later. (Hence, getting pregnant (accidentally) taught us we were ready. When the due date (which coincidentally was March as well) of the lost pregnancy came around, I remember just being frustrated. “I WOULD BE DONE BY NOW if that first one had stuck!” It’s hard to grieve the loss of a pregnancy when you can’t even see your shoes, round with a daughter who reminds you she’s okay with constant nudges.

The OB/GYN I saw a few weeks after my 2^nd miscarriage was so optimistic. I told him all the complications I had with my last pregnancy and he promised me that there were so many more options that just weren’t available or studied even just that many years ago and getting me through a pregnancy wouldn’t necessarily be easy, but possible. That kept me going for months. The possibility.

As an update to an earlier post, I am now doing self-catheterization (not nearly as bad as it sounds) when I need to so I’m not dragging a bag around. I really didn’t know how annoying it was until it was gone. I’m also awaiting some tests and hopefully explanation as to why I can’t pee. One explanation could come from an Ortho doctor who ordered an mri of my spine. Said doctor spent way too long looking at what he could see of my spine going back and forth on one frame from my hip mri whispering “right there”. I’m thinking “the possibility” is probably forever gone. Ava likely will never have a biological sibling and it doesn’t help that she asks all the time where are her brother and sister.

Corner of Terror

I appeared in my Grandma's living room, which is actually the combination living room/dining room/breakfast nook/kitchen due to the (strange) open floor plan. Grandpa was sweeping out one of the corners, which was full of cobwebs, which were full of dead bugs and things. At this point, I was pretty sure I was dreaming. Not because I live 2,500 miles away from that house, but because the Grandma I know would never have a corner full of yucky things.

For a while now, Grandma has had this mental and/or maybe physical breakdown, so maybe my subconscious was worried about who is cleaning her house. At any rate, suddenly Longitude was there, and he said he would sweep out the yucky things, and I was supposed to discard them once they got to the center of the room.

First, a dead pill bug. I don't know what they're really called, and I could easily look it up, but you know, those tiny black things that curl up when you touch them. Fine, here's a picture. It's curled, dried carcass was gently swept to the center of the room. I turned, and suddenly it became a massive slug bred with a hermit crab, alive and sliming a trail. I was incredibly terrified, but I knew it was my job to get rid of it. 

As I pondered a way to deal with the first creature, (salt it? chase it? can you flush a cat-sized object down the toilet?) the second one, an ant sized locust-type shell, was brushed near my feet. I looked down and it had become a huge serpent, coiled and angry. Over and over, small mildly gross particles turned into increasingly ominous animals. I woke up before I had formed my extermination plan.

I worry about my emotional well-being after dreams like this. But I don't dwell on it, because my physical well-being is so much more compromised. Still working on Maslow's Safety, and even some days success in the Physiological category is all I can hope for.